Citizens of Empire: Puerto Rico, Status, and Constitutional Change
Citizens of Empire: Puerto Rico, Status, and Constitutional Change Sam Erman* This Article proposes a new account of how empire became constitutional. When the United States took a deliberate imperial turn in 1898–1899 by annexing Puerto Rico and the Philippines, many jurists thought that the Constitution automatically made these islands proto-states and their residents U.S. citizens with full constitutional protections. Three decades later, this expansive view was no longer mainstream. Contrary to standard accounts, this momentous change was neither quick nor the result of unilateral judicial action. To perceive dynamics extending beyond the judiciary, this study examines the attempts to win U.S. citizenship for Puerto Ricans by their first representative in Washington, Federico Degetau y González. Aware that constitutional meaning was not exclusively the province of courts, Degetau brought claims to U.S. citizenship before administrators, legislators, and the President as well. Officials Copyright © 2014 California Law Review, Inc. California Law Review, Inc. (CLR) is a California nonprofit corporation. CLR and the authors are solely responsible for the content of their publications. * Assistant Professor, USC Gould School of Law. In addition to those acknowledged in his dissertation, the author thanks Nicholas Bagley, Rabia Belt, Mary Sarah Bilder, the Honorable José Cabranes, Kristin Collins, Akiba Covitz, Kristina Daugirdas, Christine Desan, Holger Droessler, Linda Elliott, Dan Ernst, Richard Friedman, Sarah Barringer Gordon, Annette Gordon-Reed, Tom Green, Don Herzog, Jay Hook, Morton Horwitz, Michael Klarman, Jedidiah Kroncke, Adriaan Lanni, Julianna Lee, Sophia Lee, Kenneth Mack, Bruce Mann, Maeva Marcus, Serena Mayeri, Martha Minow, Gerald Neuman, William Novak, James Oldham, J.J.
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